bonjour de Paris

Whenever I am in Paris, I walk the Meridian of Paris, traced from the Observatory of Paris beginning in the 17th century. As I do, I think about the lines that cross the earth and traverse our lives, lines that connect all the places we care about (and those where we want to be). As I walk the Meridian I think about the early scientists who asked such enormous questions about our planet and then devoted their lives to answering them. When I first walked this line in the 1990s, I thought (a little nostalgically) that I would never live in an age like theirs, an age when even the best-informed scientists knew so little about the earth. But my awareness of climate change has made me revise these ideas. And now, in Paris, under a cloud of ash whose movements no one can predict, I am reminded again that we still need to ask big questions about our planet and seek answers.

Stuck here but hoping to move south and east to meet up with all of you!

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Tags: Carol Spindel, Paris